In the Shadow of the Ark (11 page)

I must have misunderstood, it could not be possible, this must have been an old song that was about someone or something else.

But I could see in Put’s face that I had not misunderstood. He sat next to my mother, his mouth open, motionless with amazement.

I think I must have dropped the comb. Getting up, I knocked over the bowl of water. It made the dust, sand, and grit of the floor bubble up, turning it dark like skin. I left the tent, following the dwarf. He was in the adjoining servants’ area, where the leftovers of the meal had been taken. He sat bent over the pots like a vulture, unable to speak. His hands shook so hard that the contents of his spoon dribbled down his chin and breast.

I
did not return to the Builder’s sons but walked to the ark. The base of the scaffold that led to the upper deck had been closed up for the night with reed matting and many ropes. In front of it, the greyhound lay in the dust. When I approached, it stood up and sniffed the air around me. I walked away, went to the back of the structure where the still-steaming pitch vats stood, and joined the children who were pestering the workers, exhausted after the day’s work, for pitch dolls.

There was a little boy with a big head who stood smack in front of one of the workers, watching intently how the ears of his doll were modeled. “Finished?” he nagged constantly, until the man with the sticky, pitch-blackened hands lost his patience, pulled the ears off the doll, and squashed its head down into its body. The boy muttered that it was all right, he would wait. When finally, clutching the doll in his little fists, he went off with a satisfied sigh, I followed him stealthily. Uttering gentle sounds, the child made his toy walk through the air. It was a while before his interest in his prize slackened and he stopped holding it with both hands. To my relief, his attention was drawn to a stick in the sand. As soon as he was only holding his doll loosely in one hand so he could reach for the stick with the other, I snatched it from
him and ran off through the tents and screens. The child howled, but I did not look back. I went back to the entrance of the ship, kneading the pitch until it once again became warm, releasing its smell.

As if offering it a treat, I held out the black lump to the greyhound. The animal sniffed, but stiffened at the smell and reared back. I approached it once more, pushing the pitch against its nose. It pulled back even farther.

Squatting, I hooked my fingers behind the ropes, pulling them loose. I forced myself through the gap as fast as I could. The dog stormed at me, barking. I shoved the reed mat against the opening. The animal pushed its nose against the gap with a high-pitched squeal. I kept following its snout with the soft ball, distracting it until I had finally pushed all of the matting back in place. After securing it with a few quick knots, I started running up the sloping planks of the scaffold. My footsteps made a shocking amount of noise. The planks bounced in their mortises, but the more racket I caused, the faster I ran, and the more the boards rattled. I could not believe how high the upper deck was, and I was convinced that down in the yard everybody was already watching me. Any moment I expected the grim blare of bugles.

The upper deck was not yet finished. A wide edge running from the prow to the stern still needed to be covered. It would have made a quick way in if it had not looked so deep and dark that I did not dare to poke my legs through. The real gateway, the entrance for all those who would embark, and for everything that would be brought on board over the next few weeks, was closed off with a hatch set in a sloping wall rising from the deck
like a lean-to. I managed to open it through a small hole just large enough for my hand. I entered the ship and pulled the hatch down behind me.

My eyes had to adjust. It was not only dark, but the air was full of dust and grit. Under my feet, I felt a layer of shavings and splinters; obviously nobody had bothered to sweep up the rubbish and wheel it outside. I imagined it would never be removed, and in time it would be trodden into a carpet on the bottom of the ship. It would muffle the sounds of feet and hooves, making all that would happen here soundless.

Through the gap in the unfinished roof and the ventilation holes, some light entered. Though I knew better, I had imagined an empty space, a huge hall of timber and pitch, with just a few booths deep down in the hold. But I found myself in a narrow gallery that led down in a spiral. Dozens of spaces opened onto it. I entered some of those at random and found that they were divided into pens and cages. They had bamboo bars across the front and small doors that stood open but could be secured with wedges. Inside the cages stood food bowls. Some had perches, some did not. Each cage was a different shape and set up differently. They were arranged one behind the other at a slight angle, so that the occupants of different cages could not see one another.

I do not know how many side passages I entered. It was eerily quiet around me; all I could hear was the occasional squawking of the birds who had found a perch for the night on top of the ship, and the dull, low sound of their droppings on the deck. I walked on endlessly, past hundreds of cages, one after the other, and it
was as if some insane designer was leading me in circles. Descending deeper and deeper, I came to a level where the compartments became more impressive, with better hatches and doors: This was where larger animals, those with broad flanks and tall shoulders, would be housed. From this point on, the floors were level, and differences in height were spanned by ladders and stairs.

A few side passages were different; there were no bars, but proper doors with latches. The doors were made from good timber and fitted well. There were no holes or cracks; whoever stayed here would not be disturbed by whatever went on in the gallery. The floor in this section had been planed smooth, and torch holders had been fitted to the walls. There were cupboards and wardrobes, rings in the walls and stands for amphoras. I opened a door almost jammed by wood shavings and creaking on its hinges. It gave access to a comfortable hut hung with mats and with straw mattresses stacked against the wall. This hut had been hastily swept, the dust brushed out and left lying by the threshold. I could see my own footprints on the wooden floor. There would be people staying here: Only people lie on straw mattresses and cover themselves with blankets.

There were holes in various places in the floors and ceilings. Through them dangled rope ladders that looked as if they were meant for light, quick creatures. I went down one level on one of them, the ropes creaking under my weight, and I came to new cages, larger than the ones higher up, with capacious fodder troughs and mangers. I was now at one side of the ship, probably
right next to the outer wall; if I tapped on the wood now, they would quite likely hear me out there. I kept still. I wanted to go back to the center section, to the gallery that seemed to curve toward a particular spot deep in the belly of the ship.

By shuffling along carefully and giving my eyes enough time to adjust to the light that was growing ever fainter, I finally reached the open space at the end of the gallery, the only area that was not divided up into small cages and pens. This could be closed by a set of low double doors with wedges along the jambs in case the timber shrank or swelled, but for now they stood open invitingly. The space was walled with thick planks; outside sounds did not penetrate here. It felt like a cave from which you could not see the setting of the sun, let alone the sunrise. Once the door was shut, no light would ever penetrate this space. This had to be the place where what I feared would take place.

The space was rather like a reception hall, with low seats along the walls, similar to the ones I had seen in large reed buildings constructed near the wetlands by important men to conduct discussions and drink tea. There were sacks of grain, fat jars of oil, pots and pans, spoons and stirring sticks. On the floor was a layer of sand to make a fire on, there was a hollow in the ground for playing shovelboard, a harp stood in one corner, and a lyre hung on a nail.

This was not a place for dying. This was a living space, full of promise, where people would be talking and laughing, with the dwarf perhaps, if his song had made enough of an impression. It was the center where the builders, after much feinting, made
their intentions clear. If this was a coffin, then where were the indications of a slow death? The stands for the amphoras were gigantic. How much drinking water could a jug that size hold?

The ship sent a double message. It was a senseless structure in the middle of the desert, obviously intended to stay here and be scoured by the sand that would eventually smooth out the grooves and remove the layer of pitch. I had expected gloom and darkness, but what I had discovered was a city turned in upon itself, a hillside thickly built over, looking out on itself. This structure was intended to hum with life. Here there was room for stores of food and drinking water; here there were going to be people prepared for many things.

I left the central space and hurried back up the gallery, but standing there again, looking at the maze of passages and ladders, made me feel even more overwhelmed. What was the builders’ grand plan, what bizarre dream had brought them to this? Who was the god who imposed this on them? And what was I doing here, in this cave full of pits and hollows for which there was no map and over which night was now rapidly falling, in this succession of snail shells, in this monstrous inner ear? Me, used to open plains, to wide waters, and boats with honest bellies full of fish and mats and jars, but never a roof. A roof is only for very long journeys, for leaving the wetlands, going up the river and then farther, up to the lagoon, and beyond that out to sea, being quite certain that the starting point will disappear and will never be found again….

I heard a sound from a little higher up. Footsteps, very soft, because they were muffled by the wood shavings on the floor, but
becoming clearer as they came closer. Put had followed me, the little villain who accused
me
of being curious! I darted into an open cage and waited for him to get closer. I would give him a fright.

When he got to my level, I jumped out with a yell.

But it was not Put. Someone shouted back: a woman’s voice. In the half dark, it did not take me long to see it was Neelata. I recognized her figure. She dropped her basket in fright, and its contents spilled out. She did not try to stop her things falling out, she just looked at me, aghast. I bent forward, grabbing for her things; round objects amongst them started rolling down the gallery; they would go on rolling as far as the ship’s well. They were small, painted boxes and smooth, colored stones for playing games, but also combs and beads and her little pumice stone.

“Don’t shout like that, please,” she said. She did not scold me, but rather sounded surprised, as if this were a sanctuary.

“The dog let me past,” I said.

“I know. I saw you.”

I felt around me for her things and put them back in the basket.

“They’ll beat you if they find you here,” she said.

With every movement of my hand, I became more aware that these were her personal belongings, that she was apparently bringing those on board, that obviously a place on the ark had been provided for her. “I was curious. I wanted to know … Is this a ship for people?”

She gave no reply. She was counting the small stones, painted in glossy colors. They were part of a game that I knew. She had to
have all of them or the game would not work. She rubbed them on her sleeve before putting them in the basket.

“This is where we are going to wait till the water rises.” She looked at her stones. I was amazed at how well she could see in the gloom, because she kept polishing them and looking at them. “You are good with water,” she said when her basket was full. “Can you feel it coming? Will you warn us when it comes?” Hearing her talk about rising water made me think of the lakes where I had grown up, of floating reeds, of jumping from one flat boat to another, holding a taller person’s hand, spluttering and screaming with laughter if one of them capsized. But for her, the words had a very different effect. Nervously, she looked at the walls of the ship and at the layer of pitch, as if she suspected there were holes in it.

“Water is a blessing,” I said. “Water brings wind and life. It makes the crops grow and gives the world color. It should not make you feel bad.”

“The amount of it scares me,” she said. “The featureless, disorienting bulk of it.”

That is how I came to know the real purpose of the ark. It was built because of the water. I must have made a sound of relief somewhere deep in my throat. How could I explain to her that water made me feel secure? The ship was a shelter. Not an altar, as I had supposed.

“I thought it was a shrine for a holy sacrifice,” I said.

“Which animals are coming here?”

“All animals.”

“So there! If it were a sacrifice, only the clean animals would
be coming. Imagine making a sacrifice of a swan! A piglet! A camel!”

“What is a clean animal for people who do not eat meat?”

“An animal that can be sacrificed, naturally,” she said. I tried to see her as well as I could. She stood quite close, but because of what she was saying, the darkness around us seemed to get denser.

“Why is nobody saying this?”

“Don’t you ask Ham questions?”

“He doesn’t tell me anything.”

“Ham is silent for his god. The water we expect is savage. It will be of a terrifying beauty, but it will be all-consuming. It will not be like the water you sprinkle on our men. What do you think would happen if everybody knew what was coming? The Builder exhorts us to behave righteously. We need know no more than that, for how would you distinguish righteousness from fear of punishment?”

She left the space, and I followed. I felt excited thinking of the kinds of water I knew from stories. I had heard of raging rivers and waterfalls. How beautiful, I used to say, what a treat for the skin, water that scours the dirt away and that rubs your muscles loose. Of course, I was mainly used to water that came up under you, brought by a sea behind a lagoon, I barely had any concept of streaming rain.